


Kitchen Tales

by EllianaDunla



Series: Unseen Keepers of the Secret [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Gen, Head Cook
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-05 21:52:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/728295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllianaDunla/pseuds/EllianaDunla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The untold tales of the kitchens of Camelot, starring mischievous knights, incompetent kitchen maids, an annoying old man and one very irritable cook who guards her pies with her life...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Of chickens and thieves

Of chickens and thieves

 

The Camelot kitchens were the heart of the castle. Of this Mary, head cook in the royal household of the Pendragons, was completely convinced. Without the kitchen and the staff that ran it, all of Camelot would crumble. The courtiers couldn’t eat anymore, the royals wouldn’t be served their luxurious meals anymore and the servants would starve as well. In short, the Camelot kitchens were a necessity of life.

Taken all that into consideration Mary was of the opinion she should be treated with more respect than she received usually. People would often criticise her dishes, most of all her fabled pies, and complain about what they missed in their meals. Ungrateful specimens Mary thought them. They should come into the kitchen and prepare their meals themselves if they knew so well how everything should be prepared. Not that she would ever allow strangers into her domain. The kitchen was hers and no one who didn’t work there should come in there, something some people seemed to forget whenever it suited them.

But all these complainers weren’t the worst of her trouble. No, the real problem was caused by the thieves, those impatient types that couldn’t wait for dinner to be served. And instead of asking for a treat, which she, admittedly, almost never gave them, they decided to take it for themselves. Most of these wannabe thieves were easily spotted and even more easily caught. No, it were the new knights that knew how to successfully rob a kitchen and she had just about enough of it.

Unfortunately today was hardly the day to wage war on the knights. It was Samhain and there was a feast being planned. The kitchens were crowded and busier than a bee colony in high summer. Mary found herself right in the very middle of it all, stirring sauce, ordering the suppliers about and ranting against the kitchen maid who had been so stupid as to burn the chicken.

‘I swear it wasn’t like that when I last checked on it!’ the stupid girl wailed when confronted with the result of her failed attempt at cooking.

Mary pointed a large spoon at the maid’s chest. ‘That is because you took your eyes off the chicken,’ she pointed out in a threatening voice. ‘Only to stare at that hopeless good-for-nothing boy over there.’ The spoon was now directed at the blushing lad on the other end of the hall, who had come in with one of the suppliers to carry the vegetables into the inner sanctum that was her kitchen.

‘I’m sorry ma’am,’ the girl told her. ‘But I swear I didn’t lose the chicken out of sight for more than half a minute, I promise.’

Mary very much doubted that. The meat was badly burnt. Such a thing didn’t happen in half a minute. ‘Now don’t you start lying to me, young lady,’ she warned her. ‘That looks far worse than a half a minute burn. What did you think you were doing? Did you think that the chicken would magically tell you whenever it was ready so you didn’t have to watch it all the time?’

More experienced kitchen maids would have known that this was the time to back off, but this girl was pretty new to the staff and she didn’t know. ‘Well, that would be nice, ma’am,’ she replied, the hint of a smile audible in her voice.

But if she was hoping to joke her way out of this, she was badly mistaken, because this was a feasting day and then Mary was never in the joking mood. ‘Well, then you better think again, girl. Magic is outlawed in this kingdom, so you have to rely on your own wits, if they are present, to do the work.’

‘I was,’ the girl foolishly interjected.

‘No, you most definitely were not,’ Mary contradicted. The proof of that was after all right in front of them, black-burned and stinking of smoke. ‘Do you have any inkling of the importance of our work?’ The answer was obviously a no, but she still asked, for good measure.

‘We feed the royal household, right?’ the girl asked hesitantly.

‘Right, we do,’ Mary said, nodding, but still having the feeling that the real importance was not yet clear to this one. ‘So, what do you think would happen if we all let our chickens burn?’

The girl bit her lip. ‘I imagine we’d starve. Or we’d eat burnt chicken.’

This was just infuriating. ‘If we’d all let the chicken burn, then there would be no feast tonight. And if there would be no feast hosted at Samhain, then that would reflect badly on the King and Prince. Do you have any idea what would happen if the image of our ruler was being damaged?’

All she got was an incredulous look. ‘I don’t know, ma’am.’

‘Well, then other kingdoms would think Camelot weak!’ Mary pointed the spoon against the maid’s chest to drive the point home. ‘And they’d be right too, because our people got nothing to eat, because you let the chicken burn to ogle at that boy!’ Her voice steadily rose, but apparently that was called for in this particular situation. ‘And when other kings believe our kingdom to be weak, they’ll attack us because we, with our empty bellies, won’t be able to defend it!’

That shut her up nicely. The kitchen maid stared at her employer in sheer disbelief, jaw dropping. ‘Are you saying that because I burnt the chicken, we may need to go to war?’

‘That is exactly what I am saying!’ Mary bellowed, glad that she at least seemed to have some kind of understanding of what was at stake here. ‘So I’d better not find you as much as glancing at that lad again, or it’ll be you we serve on the spit!’

She left the maid to stew that over and made her way across the kitchen to check on the sauce another of her apprentices was making. But of course things never went that smoothly in the kitchens of Camelot, or Camelot in general come to think of it. She was only halfway when she had a run-in with the prince’s manservant Merlin. That boy had a history of stealing her food and if he thought she didn’t know that he was using magic out of all things to do it, then he was badly mistaken!

Mary didn’t really mind the magic bit. She was pretty sure every guard in Camelot as well as all the servants were completely aware of it and as long as he did no real harm with it, he was welcome to his small pranks of dropping trousers and cheating with the knight’s training. And even she had to admit that the boy had his uses from time to time. One of the guards, Allan, had told her lately the boy had single-handedly destroyed a dangerous beast that had a group of civilians cornered in the square.

No, the magic she was perfectly all right with Mary. What was not all right was that the boy also frequently used his powers to steal treats meant for the royals from her kitchen for private consumption. She doubted he was aware of it, but those thefts had brought her closer to reporting him to the king than anything else.

And today of course was no exception to the rule. The prince’s manservant weaved his way through the crowds with practised ease, ducking underneath plates and neatly avoiding the serving staff as if he was born to do so. However, he did steal a handful of cookies from a nearby working bench and he took another one from a plate a passing serving girl was carrying just before he caught sight of a very displeased head cook, who pointed the spoon at his chest, not unlike she had done with the kitchen maid not five minutes previously.

‘What are you doing in my kitchen?’ she demanded.

Merlin looked thoroughly shocked to see her so shortly after lifting several of her precious bakery. ‘Uh…’ came the very intelligent sounding reply. ‘The prince’s shirt!’ He blurted the words out, looking warily at the spoon that was still uncomfortably close to his chest.

If that was the truth, then it wasn’t the whole truth and Mary narrowed her eyes at the secret sorcerer – or not so secret, when one took in account how many people were actually aware of his powers – swinging the ladle in his direction. ‘That had better be true, young man,’ she told him in as threatening a voice as she could manage.

‘I swear!’ Merlin exclaimed, his eyes never leaving the ladle that Mary was known to use as effectively as the knights used their swords. The effect was more or less the same too: nobody wanted to be on the receiving end of it. ‘I’m just here for the prince’s shirt!’

Why exactly someone would hang a shirt out to dry in the kitchen out of all places was a mystery to Mary. Sure, it was always warm and that made clothing dry fast, but it wasn’t the only warm spot in Camelot.

‘Then go and get it,’ Mary told the sorcerer. ‘And then straight out of my kitchens again, do you hear?’

The boy nodded frantically, turning so drastically that he almost sent the delivery man to the ground with the force of literally bumping into him. He called out a quick apology, before he fled to the other end of the kitchen as fast as his legs could carry him.

‘And keep your dirty fingers off my food!’ Mary called out after him. ‘Do you understand?’

Merlin either did not hear or pretended he did not hear. Mary kept an eye on the clumsy servant as he made his way to where the shirt was hanging, suspiciously enough right above the already roasted chicken, right underneath an air vent that came out in a corridor above. The head cook smiled to herself as she set to work at the sauce, that was coming together rather nicely. She was almost certain that Merlin would try to make use of this opportunity. Ten to one he would not realise that this was perhaps just a little too perfect.

She turned out to be right. From the corner of her eye she could see the shirt removed from the hook and then another hook, hanging from a rope was slowly lowered towards the table. Merlin studied it with a quizzical look on his face for half a second, before he realised that evidently someone up there must be lowering it. She thought it would be safe to assume some of the new knights must be behind it. Sir Gwaine always had a healthy appetite and seemed capable of smelling a roast chicken from the other end of the castle. Sir Percival had a hungry and mischievous streak as well, so he might be behind this latest less-than-subtle stealing attempt as well.

The kitchen staff of course saw the hook, but they all made a point of ignoring it. Anna, Mary’s most important assistant, shot Mary a knowing look and the head cook nodded in approval. One last theft and then this whole sorry business would be over. Strangely she found herself looking forward to what was to come.

‘He has no idea, does he?’ Sarah, the kitchen maid standing next to Mary, asked with a merry twinkle in her eyes. She was a very promising apprentice who cared about this kingdom as much as her employer did. Her only fault was that she got distracted by a certain sir Leon every now and then. The girl had a hopeless crush on the knight for almost three years now, but in this case she was in complete agreement with her boss: stealing was a crime, whether one was a knight, servant or Camelot guard.

‘They will have within a few hours,’ Mary chuckled with black humour.

Some people would think it treason to wish ill on the esteemed knights, but in Mary’s eyes it was an even greater treason to plunder the supplies of the royal household of the Pendragons. Unfortunately treason was punishable by death, but stealing wasn’t, especially not if it was something as harmless as a simple pie, or so she had been told by Lord Agravaine. Mary had disliked the man ever since. There was something very sinister about him. _Mark my words, that man will turn out badly_ , Mary had told Sarah that day. He dressed in dark clothes, which was suspicious in and out of itself, he had this annoying ability to sneak up on people and last but certainly not least, he didn’t think stealing food was a crime, which was his worst vice by a long distance.

But the prince and his uncle might not bother with punishment for stealing food, then Mary would do it herself. With grim satisfaction she saw Merlin attaching the hook to one particular good looking and smelling chicken, give the rope a tug and then quickly dart out of the kitchen as someone from upstairs started to lift the chicken.

Mary decided to keep up appearances for a little while longer. ‘Oi!’ she called after the sorcerer. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

He turned around, unleashing that wide smile on her that had most of the kitchen maids swooning at his feet. ‘Nothing!’ he replied in a far too cheerful voice. ‘Look, I didn’t take anything!’ He held out his hands to demonstrate his point.

She waved the spoon in his direction. The warning gesture was as impressive from halfway across the kitchen as it was from up close: it still succeeded in making the young man stagger back, wiping the smile off his face in the process. ‘You’d better not have, boy, or I’ll be sure to inform the prince.’

That had been the wrong thing to say, because the smile returned at full force. Mary should have remembered that the prince was very lenient towards his manservant. The head cook sometimes wondered if the heir to the throne was aware of the boy’s magical powers, but dismissed the idea when she remembered that the prince still seemed to think Merlin was an idiot.

The boy turned around and ran out of the kitchen at full speed, obviously glad he had managed to get out of this without getting whacked over the head. Mary shook her head and smirked. This was not the end and the thieves would know it.

 

Later that night when she made her way home again, she passed the privy. She waited for a moment and then she heard the moaning of people who were having some problems with the activities of their belly. She made out the voices of sir Gwaine and sir Percival, exactly as she had already been suspecting.

‘How was the chicken, gentleman?’ she called through the door. ‘Tasty, was it?’

The moaning stopped for a moment. The silence was disbelieving and lasted for several seconds. And Mary the head cook smiled to herself and went home, feeling quite pleased with herself.

Her kitchens weren’t plundered for many months to come.


	2. Of pies and old men

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Arthur may be poisoned in 5x07, but the head cook has concerns of a completely different nature...

Of pies and old men

 

Mary was pretty sure she had done everything she could do about her pies today. Having said that, it certainly had not been smooth sailing. How on earth people got it into their heads that they could just come barging into her kitchen, taking food with them as they pleased whenever Camelot had landed itself in the next crisis was entirely beyond her. It was just one descend right into chaos and people seemed to forget that some things were never supposed to change.

That was especially true for the kitchens. Crisis or not, people still needed to eat, which was why it was so important for the head cook to keep a clear head in such circumstances. Heaven knew she could not rely on others to do the same. The kitchen maids were wailing and wondering what now should become of the kingdom and the suppliers were all so thoroughly searched by the guards before they were allowed to enter that Mary had received most of her ingredients far too late, making her short-tempered and, in the words of the Captain of the Guard, a force to be reckoned with.

And it was exactly that man that she was now on her way to go and see. It was already rather late at night, but if she knew Allan at all, he was still in his small office, trying to make sure the security was watertight to prevent any more disasters from happening.

And she was right. There were still candles burning in the office and the door was slightly ajar, allowing Mary to see the captain going through some very important paperwork with a deep frown in his forehead. He looked deeply troubled and the head cook almost felt sorry for having to shout at him. Almost.

She gave a few firm knocks on the door and then went in without waiting for an answer. ‘What did you think you were doing?’ she demanded.

Allan looked up. ‘Mary,’ he acknowledged. ‘Can you keep this brief?’

‘Just as “brief” as your search of my suppliers?’ she countered easily, giving the guard a pointed look.

Allan at least had the decency to look a little ashamed, even as he sighed in exasperation. ‘It had to be done, Mary,’ he said wearily, beckoning towards the only other chair in the small room. ‘Take a seat.’

She was inclined to turn the offer down. She preferred to remain standing whenever she was shouting at people, but since the Captain of the Guard looked so exhausted now, she supposed she could go a little easier on him today.

‘Had to be done?’ she repeated in a disbelieving voice as she sat down. ‘Have you seen the state of my kitchens, Allan? It was a downright disaster! I had to deal with wailing girls who seem to be under the impression they’re all going to be poisoned the moment they sink their teeth into a piece of bread and your men making a complete mess of everything as they went…’

It was at this point that Allan, now slightly ruffled, interrupted her. ‘We are dealing with a poisoner. Someone poisoned the king’s food and it would be a good assumption to think that the poison has been added by someone who works in the kitchens.’

Mary did not like the sound of that, not at all. ‘Are you now implying that I deliberately poisoned the king’s food, Allan?’ Her voice was dangerously low. Every kitchen maid worth her salt knew that she should better go and hide somewhere safe whenever that tone was directed against her. Allan too had been on the receiving end of it a good few times.

He however made no move to run for cover. He just snorted in irritation. ‘Of course not, Mary. But not even you can deny that it would be a logical move to think that someone from your kitchens may have added the poison to the king’s food?’

‘You’re accusing my people?’ Mary’s voice rose in anger. True, she had to make do with the most incompetent kitchen personnel in existence to provide good food for the greatest kingdom on earth, but she was the only one who had the right to accuse her people of anything. They were her personnel after all. No one else got the right to insult them, let alone as much as mention such a crime of poisoning the king’s meals. ‘Grow yourself a brain, will you, Allan? Why don’t you go ahead and accuse Merlin while you are at it?’

‘Someone already did that,’ the Captain of the Guard commented sourly. He looked positively miserable, shoulders slumping, exhaustion written all over his face. ‘The queen ordered us to lock him up. He’s in the dungeons now.’

Sometimes Mary wondered whether she was the only sane person in all of Camelot. Merlin? Poisoning the king? Had everyone just lost whatever wits they possessed. Heaven knew there weren’t many wits to be found around here, but today all of Camelot seemed to have gone insane. Not that this was so uncommon. This was just the kind of thing that tended to happen whenever a crisis came around.

‘And you are telling me you locked him up?’ she yelled.

Allan shrugged. ‘I was ordered to.’

The head cook had to suppress the urge to hit him. Bugger these guards and their love of obeying orders to the letter. What had happened to common sense? Probably poisoned along with the king. At any rate it was vanishing rapidly. Not that there had been much to begin with anyway. ‘You just locked up the only person alive who stands a chance at saving both the king and the kingdom?’ she exclaimed in exasperation. She was not overly fond of the king’s manservant and his magical stealing, but he had done a few good things over the years as well, enough to let Mary know that he had also used his magical powers for saving King Arthur’s life more than once.

‘Believe me, I know,’ Allan nodded. ‘I am rather hoping he’ll break himself out again.’

Now that got Mary’s attention. ‘Again?’

The captain nodded. ‘Aye. It wouldn’t be the first time. I’ve seen him do it more than once over the years.’ He even managed a chuckle now. ‘He has this trick. You’ve got to see it to really understand what I mean, but it’s amazing. I don’t know what he does, but he can somehow turn himself into this old man with long white hair and a beard and an absolutely ridiculous voice…’

But Mary was no longer really listening. This made her think of something else entirely. Because she knew that man. She had caught him a few times in her kitchens, stealing sweets. He had laughed, no, cackled was the word, at her in that weird voice of his before making off with her best food. Of course she had chased after him right away, but he always seemed to vanish into thin air. Unfortunately enough no one had ever really taken her seriously when she went to report the thefts. That creep of an Agravaine had even laughed at her for it. Mary therefore had not been really surprised when eventually he had turned out to be in league with Morgana.

‘Mary, are you all right?’ Allan asked. ‘You look like you have seen a ghost.’

That snapped her out of her musings. ‘That wretched boy has been using his disguise to steal sweets from my kitchens,’ she growled angrily. ‘And you can stop your laughing, Mr Captain of the Guard. This is not funny!’

Allan had the good sense to replace his expression of mirth with one that would not have been out of place at the funeral of a close relative. ‘Forgive me, it isn’t,’ he agreed. ‘But in this situation we are all in need of some laughter to chase the clouds away.’ He sighed. ‘And there seem to be a good few of them these days.’ He looked at the head cook. ‘I do not really believe one of your people is responsible for the king’s current condition, but I cannot afford to leave one stone unturned. I had to be sure.’

His serious tone made Mary take pity on him, if only a little. ‘And are you?’ she questioned.

‘As sure as I can be,’ Allan nodded. ‘I’ll make sure your people are no longer bothered by my men.’

Mary stood up and nodded with some satisfaction, giving him a sharp look to go with it. ‘You had better make sure that the same is true for my suppliers,’ she warned him. ‘Or you’ve got another thing coming.’

Allan’s eyes narrowed in anger. ‘You are aware that this kingdom is in the middle of a crisis, do you, Mary?’ he demanded. ‘We have to make allowances for the situation.’

But Mary disagreed and she knew that Allan knew that too. It needn’t be said again. ‘If one of my suppliers is as much as a minute late again, I’ll know who to blame,’ she told him, managing to make it sound like a terrifying threat. ‘This kingdom may be under threat, but that does not mean my kitchens need to suffer.’ She looked down at the plagued captain and she decided to soften up a little, just a little. ‘You’re going to be here the rest of the night, aren’t you?’

Allan rolled his eyes. ‘Most likely.’

The head cook nodded again. ‘I’ll see to it that you get one of my pies before the night is out.’

It wasn’t bribery, she told herself, not really. It was just her way of assuring that Allan would leave her personnel and suppliers alone. It was not her fault that she knew that the Captain of the Guard had a weakness for her pies. And she had not really said ‘Call off the guards and I’ll come to bring you a delicious pie’ so she had not really bribed him. That made it acceptable in her eyes. Nevertheless she was sure that the guards would not bother her suppliers again. It was just one of those unspoken agreements here in Camelot, not unlike the one that said that no one would ever give away Merlin’s secret magical powers away to the nobles. Not that Mary didn’t think a good few noblemen weren’t already aware of it, but it was just one of those things that wasn’t talked about. Everyone knew it, but no one ever mentioned it. It was what life was like in Camelot.

That did however not mean Mary tolerated everything that happened in Camelot, especially not everything that happened in her kitchen. She had only just entered and went to retrieve a pie when she saw someone in red robes standing in the very middle of her kitchens. The intruder was obviously old and had ridiculous long white hair.

Her conversation with Allan fresh in mind, she was almost certain that she was dealing with Merlin here. Had that boy too lost it? He was supposed to be saving the kingdom, not helping himself to a late-night snack!

She now did not go for the pies, but quietly retrieved a long knife from the nearest work bench and tip-toed towards the sorcerer in disguise. She would teach him that this was not acceptable behaviour.

‘You!’ she growled at him, meaning to follow that by something along the lines of alerting the guards and having arrested him for theft, but the sorcerer took her by surprise. He turned around in shock and in that moment he looked both perfectly crazy and one hundred percent Merlin. He too had that shocked look in his eyes whenever she caught him stealing. ‘What are you doing in my kitchen?’ she demanded instead.

‘Nothing…’ That tone was just a little too innocent and Mary didn’t believe it for a second.

 _Stealing my food, you mean_. She pointed the knife at his chest. Really it went against the grain to threaten old people, but this man was not really old, was he? This was just a boy posing as an old man in order to get closer to her food. And she was not about to let that happen in a hurry. ‘Nothing means mischief in my book!’ she snapped at him.

And now that she knew that it was Merlin, it was impossible not to recognise certain manners. ‘Then you’ve been reading the wrong book,’ he retorted. That mischievous twinkle in his eyes was pure Merlin too, as was the tone of his voice.

But she ignored the familiarity. ‘And mischief means theft!’ she went on.

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Merlin disagreed, but he definitely backed away a little, eyeing her knife with a healthy dose of wariness.

‘And theft means my pies!’ She had caught him stealing those far more often than she cared to count. Both the king and his servant loved them. Come to think of it, the entire castle seemed to love them, which was quite possibly the very reason they so often went missing.

Now the mischief disappeared, making way for irritation. ‘Your pies?’ Merlin sounded as if he had not been sparing them a moment’s thought up till now, something Mary found altogether difficult to believe. ‘Why on earth would anyone want to steal your godforsaken pies?’ The sorcerer’s voice was laced with irritation and a measure of mocking that set Mary’s teeth on edge and made her blood boil. Her pies were the best in all the land and no one, repeat no one, insulted her pies.

‘My pies are the talk of Camelot!’ she snarled, poking the knife at his chest again for good measure.

A mocking smile now appeared on Merlin’s face. ‘Oh, yes,’ he nodded. ‘Indeed they are. A crust like rusted iron, a filling like last year’s horse dung and the smell, oh yes, is just like the guard house’s latrine!’

Anyone in Camelot could tell you that there was one thing no one ever did within hearing distance of the head cook: no one ever insulted her food. And no one insulted her pies. Not even sorcerers were excluded from that rule, not even when they saved the king’s life on a weekly basis. And this was coming from the mouth of the greatest pie-thief in all the realm on top of that. She could understand that the boy was trying to escape by shocking her into silence, but she could tell him now that was _not_ going to work.

‘No one insults my pies and gets away with it!’ she bellowed.

Merlin rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, good grief,’ he muttered.

Before Mary had the chance to react to that, the sorcerer’s eyes flashed gold and something hit her on the back of her head very hard, making her lose her balance and drop the knife as she fell to the floor. Her vision was getting blurred around the edges, but she could still hear perfectly what the sorcerer said as he stepped over her. ‘I should have done that years ago.’ Then she passed out.

* * *

 It was very well possible that in the next few days she accidentally filled one of her pies with horse dung and sent it up to the king and his servant. It is also very well possible that said king and servant did not feel so well for some days after, but it was a fact that no one made an attempt to either steal or insult her pies for quite some time to come.


End file.
